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Flame Challenge: What is Energy?

Alan Alda has issued this year’s challenge to the world’s top scientists: What is energy? In an action-packed hour of interactive demonstrations, Alan and a team of experts invite the audience to explore how our bodies use energy, the impact of natural resources, and how we’re going to power the world in the future. The program also highlights the winners of the 2017 Flame Challenge, in which video and written explanations of energy were judged for clarity’s sake…by 20,000 eleven year-olds.

This program is in association with the Flame Challenge, an annual contest held by The Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University.

Moderator

Alan Alda, a seven-time Emmy® Award winner, played Hawkeye Pierce and wrote many of the episodes on the classic TV series M*A*S*H. He has starred in, written, and directed many films, and was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in The Aviator.

Participants

Eddie Goldstein is a science communicator, program developer and performer who specializes in creating dynamic presentations, demonstrations and exhibits for museums and science centers. He also coaches scientists in communication skills to help them better tell the science stories that they want to tell.

Herman Pontzer, professor of Anthropology at Hunter College and the City University of New York, investigates the energetics and evolution of humans and other apes. Dr. Pontzer’s work seeks to understand how our bodies evolved and how our evolutionary past shapes our lives today.

Lynn Trahey is a materials scientist in the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research Energy Innovation Hub where she leads scientific integration efforts as the Research Integration Officer. She graduated with a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley.